The document summarizes a community-based solid waste management initiative in Kumbarakoppal ward of Mysore, India. A local Member of Legislative Council facilitated the formation of Resident Welfare Associations to implement source segregation, door-to-door collection, transportation, and composting of waste. Key activities included awareness drives, collection of waste in tricycles, segregation into organic and inorganic, and composting. The community faced challenges in initial involvement but support from local leaders and the city corporation helped address issues and generate funds through user fees and compost sales. The initiative provides an effective model for locally managing solid waste.

1. ACEE Int. J. on Transportation and Urban Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 2012
Community Initiatives for Solid Waste Management at
Ward Level: The Case of Kumbarakoppal, Mysore,
INDIA
Dr. B. Shankar
Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning
Institute of Development Studies, University of Mysore, Mysore, India E-mail: doddi43@gmail.com
Abstract: The involvement of local citizen, community, resident 5000.The settlement is typical a transformed urban village
welfare associations and stakeholders in this process managing with grid-iron pattern and has, many narrow roads and the
waste at household/community level is very much crucial in width of the road varies from 2mts to 9 mts and total length of
urban villages for achieving environmental cleanliness.
road is 18.29 kms. It has rural traditions and cultures in many
Kumbarapoppal is an urban village which has transformed
from village into a neighbourhood in Mysore City. The
areas. The majority of the houses are country tiled and
initiation of community based solid waste management system Mangalore tiled houses. The generation of commercial solid
by forming a Resident Welfare Association at neighbourhood wastes are from 228 shops, 2 choultaries, 3 hotels, 11 meat
level through segregation, transporting, recovering recyclable shops, 5 hospitals and clinics and 9 temples.
wastes and composting at community level has been an effective
innovative method. The paper presents the innovate method III. INITIATIVES OF COMMUNITY BASED SOLID
of managing the solid waste locally in Kumbara Koppal by WASTE MANAGEMENT BY MLC
the Resident Welfare Association and Community Based
Organisation with the facilitation from the Local Political The then Member of Legislative Council (MLC) was
Leaders for meeting key challenges solid waste. mooted the concept of ward-parliament in the minds of the
local residents. He also took up the issue of initiation of
Index of Terms: Solid Waste, Community, Composting, Resident community based solid waste management proposals with
Welfare Association.
the elected corporators and officials of the City Corporation
and initiated consultative process for identifying the
I. INTRODUCTION stakeholders for facilitating the programme. The MLC took
initiative to convince the City Corporation officials, local
Solid waste is generated at household and neighbourhood residents along with the councillor and EXONORA for
levels, which contains both biodegradable and non-bio- initiating the process of door-to-door primary collection,
degradable. These wastes are to be collected, transported, segregation of waste both bio-degradable and non-
processed and disposed properly. The Solid Waste degradable waste at the residents’ door-step levels,
Management (Handling) Rules, 2000 emphasises on transporting this waste using hand carts and tricycles and
participation of community, welfare associations, and non- composting of solid waste at community level.
governmental organisations for house-house collection, The MLC undertook drives for redressing citizen
processing and disposing. one such experiment of solid grievances, ward level day-to-day problems and maintenance
wastes management was initiated in Kumbara Koppal in the works to involve the people actively in the processes. His
City of Mysore by forming Resident Welfare Associations facilitation on re-development of a slum in collaboration with
(RWAs) and involving all the stakeholders viz. local citizen, the help of Karnataka Slum Clearance Board, construction of
NGO, local community, and elected councillor and. The then access road through City Corporation, formation of shree-
Member of Legislative Council, who resided in this area, has shakthi groups for micro-financing, initiation of skill training,
been an instrumental in initiating the community based solid entrepreneurship development and self-employment ventures
waste management in Kumbara Koppal. The paper presents in collaboration with the SJSRY, Industries and Commerce
the ward-level initiatives, formation of Resident Welfare Department, RUDSET, and other women development
Associations, leadership motives for facilitation, stakeholders organizations, have developed the confidence in the minds
participation and mobilising local resources for initiating of the local residents. A series of weekly meetings and
primary collection, segregation, transporting and processing advocacy programmes followed by involving city corporation
of waste through composting for making litter-free (zero health officers, engineers, pourakarmikas, health inspectors
waste) ward and meeting the compliance SWM Rules as well. have helped in getting support from the City Corporation in
identifying land and building including equipments and
II. BACKGROUND OF KUMBARAKOPPAL implements for carrying out the solid management process at
Kumbarakoppal is situated on the northern side of ward level. When solid waste management was set motion
Mysore City at 7 kms from the centre of the city, in a ward No. with the help of EXONARA Kumbarakoppal extension, the
28. The present estimated population of Kumbarakoppal is Nirmala Nagar Scheme was introduced by the Government to
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2. ACEE Int. J. on Transportation and Urban Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 2012
form Resident Welfare Association and Federations of RWAs of the Area. A stall was opened by the RWAs in Dasara
to make more institutional arrangement at ward level. Exhibition and a series of meetings were being organized to
solve the problems of RWAs. The structure of RWA and its
IV. FORMATION OF RWAS federation is given in the fig.1. The federations that were
formed in Nirmala Nagar scheme is functioning very even
The guidelines for Resident Welfare Association (RWA)
though the scheme is winded up.
were issued by the Mysore City Corporation. An area consists
of 500 households in a RWA is to be demarcated spatially in
V. INITIATION OF COMMUNITY BASED SOLID WASTE
a map in each ward. One representative leader is to be elected
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
for every 50 households and ten representatives in an RWA
consists of an Executive Committee, of which a President, A. AWARENESS DRIVES
Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer with 6 Directors. Ward The system of door-to-door collection was introduced in
Corporator will be the Honorary President for RWA. A nodal collaboration with Mysore City Corporation and a Non-
officer from the City Corporation will monitor and supervise governmental organization, EXONORA, Chennai with the
the work of RWAs. The responsibilities of RWA are (a) to lay support of local leaders and stakeholders. The MLC, who
road map and workout timings for collection of solid waste in resided this area, carried forward messages in the minds of
area and inform to each and every households; (b) to identify local residents for solid waste management awareness drive.
primary storage space in the RWA area and place the solid He participated in the streetwise awareness drives, later
waste in the identified place; (c) to obtain dumping bins from involved in weekly meetings. He involved in addressing day-
the City Corporation for storing the solid waste; and (d) to to-day local problems of the citizen as a follow-up action in
initiate action against those littering the solid waste either by coordination with the officials of City Corporation. The local
the residents or office bearers of RWA. problem redressal became a tedious and time-consuming task
The Association is required meet in the first week of every and arranged series of consultations with the City Municipal
month compulsorily and the association visits at least once Commissioner, Honourable Mayor and other officers and got
in a week, each of the households to listen issues/grievances. the support from the City Corporation. The MLC along with
The representation of all religion, caste and classes need to the local Corporator, RWAs officer bearers, Health/Deputy
be ensured in the RWA. The motivational drives were Health Officer, Engineer, Health Inspector of the area
encouraged to build the confidence among the local residents, conducted the series of weekly meetings to accelerate the
Environmental Clubs of Schools and Colleges. The solid waste management drives. The people, who raised the
association has powers to levy user charges of Rs.10-20 from problems in the operation of door-door collection system,
residents, Rs.20-50 from shop owners and establishments were invited for weekly meetings and their doubts used to be
and Rs.50-100 from hotels, chowltry others. The RWA’s cleared in the meeting.
responsibilities are to include conducting regular monthly
meetings, managing accounts, maintaining the tricycles, B. COLLECTION AT SOURCE
pushcarts, and equipment. The RWA can engage four A two-member team has been visiting each of household
members of ‘urban relatives’ are also called ’nagara bhandu’ for primary collection of waste at source, in their respective
or pourakarmikas on contract basis part-time or full time for areas along the tri-cycle. Initially, about 75% of the households
primary collection with a remuneration fixed from time to time; were responded in the area. The Collection time starts at
maintain attendance and look after the welfare of the urban 7.00AM and continued up to 100.AM in the morning and
relatives including monitoring. now all the households are participating in door-door
collection.
C. SEGREGATION OF WASTE AT SOURCE
While collecting the waste from each of the households,
the organic waste and inorganic wastes were segregated and
put them in different containers. The organic waste was
further segregated at the processing yard (grave-yard) to
use only bio-degradable materials in the compost bins. The
non-biodegradable wastes were further segregated for
marketing the wastes. The wastes are segregated every day
immediately after transport to the grave yard and when the
solid waste is fresh. The solid waste which lying on the road
contains both bio-degradable and non-bio-degradable is also
Fig 1. Structure of Resident Welfare Association
transported to compost yard and segregated on day-to-day
Keeping the above guidelines, four Resident Welfare basis.
Associations were formed namely Cauvery Extension and
Madheswara Extension one each and two in Kumbarakoppal D. TRANSPORTATION AND PROCESSING OF WASTE
under the honorary chairmanship of the Elected Corporator Tricycles and hand pushcarts are used to collect and
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3. ACEE Int. J. on Transportation and Urban Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 2012
transport the household, commercial and street wastes from responded to pay user charges of Rs.10 on monthly basis.
the locality to the processing graveyard by urban bandhus. 30-40 households paid user-charges in each of the RWA areas.
People, who have come forward to pay user-charges on their
E. COMPOSTING
own voluntarily from them user-charges, were collected. An
Two methods namely composting and vermi-composting amount of Rs.50-100 per event was collected from the
were followed. Composting was done in a simple method of Community Building (Chatra), when it was used for individual
aerobic digestion. Organic segregated wastes were dumped purposes. After the introduction of Solid Waste Cess, the
by following the wind rose method, wherein, Bamboo Mysore City Corporation has taken the responsibility of to
containers with a dimension of 5’x 12’ x5’ constructed. The fund for the project and the user charges has been stopped.
container exposed to air, but located below the banyan tree.
Wind-rose was formed and cow dung was sprayed over the VII. LOCAL SUPPORT AND CO-OPERATION
wind rose to accelerate the process of decomposition as a
culture. It was allowed to decompose for 45 days and taken Firstly, the community initiatives were supported fully
out for sieving to get the compost materials. The organic well by the local councillor. The Local Member of Legislative
waste was allowed for 15 days within in the bamboo container Assembly (MLA) was also giving encouragement to this type
with the cow-dung treatment. After that semi-composted of local action oriented program. Secondly, the Community
material was taken out and verms were added in a shaded has a strong base and long history of supporting local
area. initiatives. The local pachayaths ( local governance) was very
strong in this settlement and it has been a tradition where in
VI. EFFORTS FOR RESOURCE MOBILIZATION people used to participate in the local area developmental
activities. Kumbarakoppal Abhyudhaya Sangha (KKAS) was
A. CONTRIBUTION FROM CITY CORPORATION in operational which had a legal status with formal
City Corporation has contributed towards salary and other organisation, having registered under the Karnataka Societies
expenditure initially until the community generated out of Registration Act. As per the Abhyudhaya Sangha, the
waste. When the Resident Welfare Associations were formed, extension area was divided into 8 groups (i.e., 8 zones) each
the City Corporation provided infrastructure in the form of group members elects one leader to represent the Sangha
land building and the equipments and tools for promotion of and support for area developmental activities which were
the Community Based Solid Waste Management System and initiated by the leaders. The people used to recognise the
are: (a) a piece of land allotted (earmarked) in a burial ground work of group leader and used to give respect for their
of Kumbarakoppal, (b) a shed with a dimension of 25’x60’ dedicated works.
was constructed and provided for the community managed The main initiatives which were undertaken by the KKAS
solid waste management and (c) equipments. After the were:
introduction of Solid Waste Management Cess, the entire i)Building the Choultry including its maintenance
expernditure of Salary and equipments are met out by the ii)Building Temple including its maintenance
Mysore City Corporation to promote the best practices of Even though, people used to support for different political
zero waste management. parties among the members of the groups or leaders, the
main strength of this settlement was that people used unit
B. CONTRIBUTION FROM LOCAL AREA DEVELOPMENT FUND
together for developmental works even though there are
When the EXONORA withdrew their support, MLC had political differences and their personal differences used to
contributed out of his local fund for payment of salary and solve in the group meetings by themselves. The involvement
other expenditure for a short while when the project was of Member of Legislative Council (MLC) had given big boost
under crisis, until the corporation has taken over the for the community initiatives.
responsibility. The MLC was a local resident of the area, approachable
C. SALE OF COMPOST AND NON-BIO-DEGRADABLE MATERIALS by the people to solve their day to day problems. He used to
involve in the local sangha activities and community activities
The Resident Welfare Association has generated funds
as well. He earned reputation when he was a Chairman of the
out of sale compost and waste, 3-4 tons per month an average.
Mysore Urban Development Authority, and he employed
The compost was initially purchased by the Mysore City
innovative approaches to solve the problem of housing in
Corporation for park management and urban forestry. The
the City of Mysore which has brought lot of laurels to him.
Federation of RWA make sales to local residents at Rs.3 to
He had recognised the factor of local empowerment of the
Rs.4 per kg to generate funds for procurement and
people and innovativeness in community based solid
management of equipments and compost plant.The
management by collecting information both from the local
Federation is supplying compost to the Mysore City
people and officers of City Corporation. He started involving
Corporation at free of urban forestry.
in the program, had dialogues with the people and worked
D. COLLECTION OF USER CHARGES for development of area resulted in the mobilising the support
An Amount of Rs.10/- from each household was collected of local people to the program.
on a monthly basis initially. Hardly 10% of the people
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4. ACEE Int. J. on Transportation and Urban Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 2012
VIII. THE KEY CHALLENGES OF THE PROJECT
The key challenges faced by the project are as follows:
1. Involving the people in the local community initiatives.
2. Addressing the local grievances and basic amenities
delivery problems and make follow-up action by the MLC
and Corporation on day-to-day basis
3. When people were ready to implement the program, there
was no approval of Nirmala Nagar Scheme at the Government
level which frustrated the local community
4. Transfer of officials from one section to another section is
common but to retain in the same section for long time for
supporting the new initiatives was a challenging task
5. Initially, EXONORA agreed to extend support and later
withdrawn to share their community based solid waste
management experience.
6. Willingness to pay to change the mindsets of the people
7. Whether the Mysore City will extend the support of
purchasing the manure from the Community for sustaining
the project at least for 2 to 3 years.
IX. STAKEHOLDERS PARTICIPATION
The following stakeholders were participated in introducing
the system.
TABLE I. ACTORS/STAKEHOLDERS AND T YPE OF SUPPORT EXTENDED
TABLE II. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
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5. ACEE Int. J. on Transportation and Urban Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 2012
X. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT vi) Revolving Funds of Rs.1.00 to be provided for each of
RWAs for mobilisation of funds and generate fund.
The community members have started maintaining
vii) All the Federations and RWAs to be registered to get
accounts after establishing the formal organisation of RWA
access to financial support.
in May 2005 and before that it was maintained on ad-hoc
viii) Budgetary support to RWAs and Federations to be
basis. It has been observed from their recurring expenditure
provided by the City Corporation.
that the RWA spent an amount of Rs.1.051/- lakhs for seven
ix) The Neighbourhood Groups and Neighbourhood
months period, which worked out to be an average Rs.15,000/
Committees of SJSRY scheme are to be involved in the process
- per month. The expenditure mainly incurred to honorarium
of community empowerment.
to eight personnel, who have involved in door-to-door
x) Shree-skati groups and neighbourhood groups may be
collection and a supervisor. An amount of Rs.1400/- for the
engaged for waste collection and for their local economic
collectors and Rs.3000/- per month for the supervisor was
development
provided for their work from morning 7.00 am to 1.00 pm.
xi) Alternative leaders need to be identified and their
Now, the urban bandhus have been provided with minimum
leadership skills to be developed for sustenance of the project
wages of government with all allowances. After the city
xii) Alternative mechanism for sale of compost with enrichment
government’s introduction of solid waste management cess,
and branding may be undertaken to capture the market
the entire expenditure is met by the City Corporation.
through community members
xiii) Creation of improved infrastructure namely, concrete base
XI. LEARNING POINTS
for handling the solid waste, collection of leach ate chambers,
i) Community initiatives and democratic processes of shelter to cover the compost yard and proper tools including
community development have helped them to build strong hand groves, landscaping of grave yard, environmental
community structures of Resident Welfare Association in improvement is crucial and improvement measures to be
Kumbarakoppal settlement. undertaken immediately.
ii) Strong Political support under the leadership of the then xiv) The documentation best practices are to be undertaken
MLC, and elected representatives and official support in the form of Audio Visuals and Case Studies and case lets.
reinforced confidence levels among the people.
iii) Awareness to people by the community and local REFERENCES
community leaders was a major driving force
[1] Anschutz, Justice, “Community Based Solid Waste Management
iv) Community managed compost created challenge among and Water Supply Projects: Problems and Solution”. UNEP working
the local residents paper 2, The Netherlands, 1996.
v) The revenue generation in the form of user charges and [2] Yadav, Ishhwar Chandra adn Linthoingambi N. Devi, “Studies
sale of compost was sufficient to meet the management on Municipal Solid Waste Management in Mysore City: A Case
expenses to run the system on a sustainable system. Study”, Report and Opinion, 1(3), pp-15-21, 2009 www.science.net
vi) Handhold support for the community initiatives from the [3] Shankar B, “Community Based Solid Waste Management: The
local leaders was very crucial when operational was difficult Case of Ward No.35 (Kumbarakoppal), Mysore”, State Institute
due paucity of funds. of Urban Development, Mysore, 2007.
[4] B. Shankar and Chidambaraswamy, Urban Poverty Alleviation
vii) Local cost effective technology options were easily
Experiences of Community Development Initiatives in Karnataka,
managed by the local RWA and Federation International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol.1, No.6,
viii) Significant stakeholder’s participation has enabled the ACCEE, Finland, pp 72-76, 2009.
RWAs for proactive participation.
BIOGRAPHY
XII. SUGGESTIONS FOR STRENTHENING COMMUNITY B. Shankar received the B.E. degree in Civil
INITIAVATIES Engineering in 1984, M.U.R.P degree in Urban
i) Resident Welfare Association needs to be undertaken and Regional Planning in 1989 and Ph.D degree
awareness programmes on segregation at source and its in Urban and Regional Planning in 1997 from
impact on health. the University of Mysore, Mysore. He is
ii) Capacity Building and Training to be taken on war-footing working as Associate Professor in Urban and
basis Regional Planning at the Institute of
iii) Exchange visits to be organised to other cities of selected Development Studies, University of Mysore,
local residents, Mysore. His research interests to include
iv) Awards to be instituted for encouragement of members Urban Planning, Urban Poverty, Community
and local residents to take active part in the processes. Development, Solid Waste Management,
v) Information Education and Communication component to Heritage Conservation, and Planning
be introduced to strengthen the community structures Legislation.
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